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VOIP Phonelines for Fire Alarm dialout UPS?

We have an installation that just switched all their lines to VOIP, they did not tell us about it and normally the panels self test every day. One day the VOIP system went down and we stopped getting test signals from the 10 buildings on site, later we found out it was due to the system shutting down and not being reset. They corrected this and now we are getting test signals. We are used to using Analog phone lines where we can set up line siezure using an RJ31X block. We contacted the State Fire Marshal and we were told VOIP was ok as long as it met the rest of the codes. The issue I see is they do not have a 24 hour battery backup UPS on their VOIP system to avoid the kind of problem that occured. Analog lines would not go down if there was a power outage. Can you help me with a code reference to support this UPS backup?

VOIP fire alarm dialing

Your right , I don't trust the VOIP either and no the RJ31X blocks had to be re-wired and I wrote up a long report listing the liability and I also notified the local fire marshal of my concerns. So I think we have covered the issues but still thought that the VOIP system should have the 24 hour backup just like the panel does.

I had my phone line ported to my cell phone and for some reason me and a friends voip phone system cant make a call to the ported cell phone. att could not explain why this was occurring a first for them . All other cell phone and land lines work . I would probably not trust this as a primary or emergency point of contact .

What you have to keep in mind with VoIP and alarm systems is that the VoIP Modem is now the phone demark -- so RJ31X jacks need to be checked for correct line seizure and verified that they are still ahead of any premise phone/fax sharing that line.

Understanding and embracing VoIP and Ethernet communications can be a money maker for alarm dealers and fire alarm companies.

I recently converted the all the fire alarm systems for property management company that owns 43 building n the same commercial office park over to Ethernet and GSM communications. The conversion is going to save them tens of thousands in phone bills. They are able to cancel 86 phone lines so the cost to convert/upgrade will pay for itself in a couple of years.

We made money on the equipment sale, installation, and increased monitoring fees.

New communication infrastructures are here and it won't go back to how it was. We have to keep up with technology, understand the vulnerabilities, and protect the systems from them by using redundancy and UPS.

As with any new product, methods, or technologies;The Code will catch up in time.

new voip

The UPS on the system is a $1300 dollar UPS that will hold the system for about an hour from what the phone guy told me. My worry is if it goes out it won't meet the secondary power supply 24 hour requirment and apparently one that will is much more money. I did mention cellular backup and the Radio monitoring as well. We also have the Internet monitoring module for the Bosch panels that poles every 75 seconds but we have been getting lots of troubles on those accounts since their Internet comes up and down quite often. Thank you for your answers.

We carry a lot of liability in the fire alarm industry so CYA by writing a clause into your contracts that states the owner/customer is responsible for providing and maintaining the required communications wiring/infrastructure and secondary power. We can only go so far. It is no different than when a customer cancels a phone line and the DACT can't communicate with the central station any longer. Clearly not the contractors fault, but have the customer's signature will go a long way in clearing up who is responsible and it makes it easier to collect $$$ for the service call.

I had my phone line ported to my cell phone and for some reason me and a friends voip phone system cant make a call to the ported cell phone. att could not explain why this was occurring a first for them . All other cell phone and land lines work . I would probably not trust this as a primary or emergency point of contact .

I had that happen when porting a number away from ATT, they (ATT) did not remove the number from their routing table (or whatever its called) making any calls coming through att think that att still held the number which resulted in a number out of service message.

My experience with VOIP

My company has a sight that had converted to VOIP a few years ago. We have about 23 burglar alarm systems on this sight and worked with the VOIP company to get everything running correctly. The problems with this sight now are sometimes the ATA devices lose dial tone but still put out voltage which makes the alarm panels think a phone line is still active and functioning. Another problem is the I.T. department is responsible for the VOIP system and thus has replaced some ATA's with different models that appear to have a problem with the signals sent from the alarm systems. Sometimes the signals sent will get through to a central station or their onsite receiver but it has not proven to be reliable.
This would have been a lot easier to rectify if IT had been more willing to work with us on these problems instead of changing them out to a cheaper, untested model.